My phone, if it was on me at the time of the crash, is now at the bottom of the river, completely ruined. So I give the cops my home landline number, but when nobody answers, and I can’t remember any of the other numbers off the top of my head, they agree to give me a ride home. If everyone’s out, well, I know where the spare key is kept.
In my universe, anyway. But this one looks close. The license plates are all from California, and although I’m not positive, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this area before. It can’t be too far from our house in Berkeley. Even this sweater is one I own at home.
A neutral universe, Conley said. One not marked for destruction—one where this world’s Marguerite didn’t have to die. Wicked tried to kill her anyway.
Was Conley lying to me? He never hesitated to when it served his purposes. This time, though, I think he was telling the truth.
I think Wicked tried to kill this Marguerite . . . just for the fun of it.
She calls it an art form, Paul told me in the Home Office. What brushes and paints are to me, manipulation and murder are to her.
And I know—from my own heart, and from the experiences of so many other Marguerites—I’ll never give up my art.
When we get to the house, Mom’s car is out front, but the mail is jammed in the box like she hasn’t checked it in days. The cop who brought me here frowns. “Your parents on a trip?”
“They go to lots of academic conferences.” Which is true, though they always remember to put through a stop-mail order. Well, I guess one time they forgot. I tilt one of the flowerpots over to see the spare key just where it always is, outlined by a dusting of soil. “See? I’m good.”
The cop shows me in, gives me a citation report, and tells me to come down to the station tomorrow to talk with them about this. Although I don’t think I’m going to be in serious trouble, I suspect a suspended license is in this Marguerite’s future. But she won’t mind. Not when I leave here and she remembers what happened, and what nearly happened. Calling Uber for six months is a small price to pay compared to drowning.
Once the police car finally pulls away, I lock the door behind me and walk toward my room. My steps slow as I take a good look around. This is my house, but something’s not right.
In fact, something is very, very wrong.
Mom’s houseplants, her pride and joy . . . they’re all dying. Some are already dead. Their leaves have turned brown and curled at the edges for lack of water. The sight shocks me so much that I turn to get the watering can before I think, Shower and put on some clothes first. I’m still wearing the silvery blanket wrapped around me and not much else.
Then I hear my mom’s voice from her bedroom. “Who is it?”
“Mom? Were you asleep?” None of this makes any sense to me. “I was in a car accident—I’m okay, but the car sank—”
My words trail off as Mom shambles into view. She’s never been a fashion plate, wears sweaters nearly as old as I am, and so far as I know is allergic to makeup. But the shapeless sweatpants and T-shirt she’s wearing now are filthy and food-stained; her hair seems not to have been washed in at least a week. “Marguerite? What happened?”
“I think I fell asleep while I was driving.”
That should shock her out of her doze. She’ll come to me, ask questions about trajectories and velocities while she strokes my hair and tells me to take a warm bath.Instead, Mom gets furious. “You can’t even bother to take care of yourself! You yell at me for not caring, and then you go and do something like this?”
“I didn’t mean to!” My mother is so even-tempered that I’ve hardly ever had to deal with her when she’s this angry. Maybe not ever. Her eyes burn with a feverish light, and suddenly I’m afraid. Not of her. For her. Because whoever this unstable person is, she’s not the Sophia Kovalenka I know. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry. I’ll—I’ll sell some paintings, maybe, start to pay you back for the car—”
“Right. It’s all going to be fine once you’re painting again, and I go back to the university. The new car will be just as good as the old one.” Her smirk is bitter. “Any day now.”
What can I say? “I’ll make it up to you. I can. Somehow.”
She puts her arms around me then, and I’m shocked by how thin she is. We’re both bony, well beyond “fashionably thin,” into the area where doctors quiz you about anorexia even though you came in for a flu shot. That’s just how we are. But my mother has lost even more weight, to the point that it can’t possibly be healthy, even for her. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Mom murmurs into my damp hair. “I’m sorry. You know I love you.”
“I love you too.” As much as I mean those words, I say them mostly because I think she needs to hear it.
“If anything happened to you—”
“It won’t. I promise. Look, see? I’m fine.” I try to smile for her.
But Mom’s expression darkens. “You can’t promise me nothing will happen. No one can.”
We stand facing each other for a few long terrible seconds, until I finally say. “I need to shower.”
“And put on some dry things.” For one brief moment, she kind of sounds like herself. “Then we can get some sleep.”
“Pizza,” I find myself saying. “Pizza, then sleep.”
“Okay.” Mom wanders back into her bedroom. Although she could be going for her phone to call the delivery guys, I suspect I’ll have to be the one to do that.
Why does Mom look so terrible, and why did she act so weird about my car accident? How could she ever have let her plants die? I don’t see any equations on the chalkboard wall; long-ago ones linger as mere shadows of white dust. Do Paul and Theo not come by here, or any other graduate students either?
And where’s my dad?
As soon as I’m rinsed off and clothed again, I have to start exploring each of these questions. But I already suspect I won’t like the answers.
All I know is that this version of my mother is the weakest—the most broken—that I’ve ever found. If Wicked had murdered this version of me, already I know Mom wouldn’t have been able to go on.
But Wicked tried anyway. Even in a neutral world, with no reason for violence, no orders from Wyatt Conley, Wicked still went in for the kill.